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Saturday, December 21, 2013

Unusual Words from Gravity's Rainbow

Here and there around the Web you'll find lists of vocabulary words culled from Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon's epic postmodern novel about the deployment of the V-2 rocket in World War II. I couldn't resist compiling such a list myself. I've been a professional writer, a student of the English language, for almost 40 years, and like Thomas Pynchon himself, I spent a good deal of time employed as a technical writer. It's not often I come across a word in English I've never seen before, but in reading Gravity's Rainbow, one finds oneself accosted by such words with metronomic regularity; which (if you're a student of the language) is a pleasant surprise indeed.

In the table further below are a few English words I'd not seen used in any novel before. (I've omitted words relating to architecture and fabrics, two areas where Pynchon seems to have developed a fetishistic devotion to lexical obscurata. Likewise, I make no attempt to list engineering terms, which are legion in Gravity's Rainbow.)

In case you want to try to catch a feel for the actual prose whence these words came, a Chinese site has the entire text of Gravity's Rainbow online, as follows:

I don't advocate attempting to read the entire book online, nor do I believe anyone would be so foolhardy as to try to do so. (I do strongly advocate buying the book or obtaining it from the library.) These links are meant as sample entry points.

Here, then, without further ado, are a few words I encountered in Gravity's Rainbow that I cannot recall encountering in any other novel in English:

antinomian

Of
or relating to the view that Christians are released by grace from
the obligation of observing the moral law.

bedizen

(verb) To decorate tastelessly.

dishabille

The
state of being only partly or scantily clothed.

doss

(verb) To sleep in a usually uncomfortable place that does not have a
bed.

emprise

An
adventurous, daring, or chivalric enterprise

firth

Coastal
waters in Scotland and England.

gloze

(verb) Make excuses for.

gunsel

A criminal carrying a gun.

nacre,
nacreous

Nacre
is mother-of-pearl, nacreous is thus a pearlescent or lustrous and
iridescent white sheen.

oneiric

Of
or relating to dreams or dreaming.

pantechnicon

1. A large van, esp one used for furniture removals. 2. A warehouse
where furniture is stored.

passementerie

Ornamental
trimming for a garment, as braid, lace, or metallic beads.

preterition

1. The action of passing over or disregarding a matter, esp. the
rhetorical technique of making summary mention of something by
professing to omit it. 2. (in Calvinist theology) Omission from
God's elect; nonelection to salvation.

quai

A
wharf or reinforced bank where ships are loaded or unloaded.

rachitic

Of
or relating to ricketts, the vitamin-deficiency disease.

sastrugi

Wind
erodes snow from the windward side of an obstacle and deposits it on
the lee side. Sastrugi are the ridge-like formations of snow thus produced.

scombroid

Bony fish (such as tuna, swordfish) are scombroid fish. May also refer to illness (poisoning) from eating tainted fish of this general category.

spicule

Any
of many needle-like crystalline structures that provide skeletal
support in marine invertebrates.

talion

A
punishment identical to the offense (eye for an eye).

velleity

A wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action, e.g. "the
notion intrigued me, but remained a velleity."